This Arabic alchemical work by the name of The Book of Seventy Truths is attributed in the manuscript to Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Zakarīyā’ al-Rāzī, though it may be a spurious attribution. Until the discovery of this fragment, al-Rāzī's treatise by that title was known only through its Latin translation, Liber 70 praeceptorum.

Illustrations

MS A 70, fol. 20b

MS A 70, fol. 21a

The opening two folios of a fragment of an alchemical treatise attributed to Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Zakarīyā’ al-Rāzī (d. 925) that is otherwise known only through its Latin translation Liber 70 praeceptorum. This fragment from Kitāb al-Iḥqāq min sab‘īn (The Book of Seventy Truths) is the only recorded copy of the Arabic original. The copy is undated, probably 17th or 18th century.

Physical Description

Arabic. 3 leaves (Fol. 20b, line 14-fol. 22a, line 7). Dimensions 21.3 x 16.8 (text area 15 x 10) cm; 20 lines per page. On folio 20b, line 14, it is stated that this is an extract (nubdhah) from the Kitāb al-Iḥqāq min sab‘īn (The Book of the 70 Truths) by Muḥammad ibn Zakarīyā’. The author's name is repeated in the following line as well.

The copy is undated and unsigned. The appearance of the paper, ink, and script suggests a date of the 17th or 18th century.

The text is written in a small, compact naskh script using black ink with headings and overlinings in red. There are catchwords. All twenty-seven items in this volume were transcribed by the same unnamed copyist. On some leaves there are instructions written vertically in the margins to the person who later inserted the rubricated headings; most have been cut off as the edges were trimmed.

There are copious marginalia throughout in several hands, with some interlinear notes. A later hand has written the titles of various individual items in the volume in the upper left corners of the recto of some folios. One person adding marginalia to the volume frequently cites the alchemical authority al-Jaldakī.

Fols. 1-40 are composed of a biscuit, fibrous paper having a nearly matte finish, with neither laid lines nor chain lines. Fols. 41-67 are composed of paper dyed a light gray, of structure and finish similar to the first group. The edges have been trimmed from their original size. The volume is damp-stained and soiled through thumbing.

Binding

Provenance

On fol. 1b there is an impression of an owner's stamp whose date might be 1123 (= 1711), though the middle numerals are not clear, and the name might be Abū Nūr Muḥammad al-Ḥusaynī. On fol. 1a there is an unidentified library stamp.

The volume was purchased in 1941 by the Army Medical Library from A.S. Yahuda (ELS 1701 Med 120).

References

Schullian/Sommer, Cat. of incun. & MSS., entry A 70, p. 320, where says it a collection of 32 alchemical treatises.